NEW DELHI | KOLKATA: India Inc's war on single-use plastics is already on. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called for a mass movement against single-use plastics from October 2, a clutch of companies had readied themselves for it ahead of time.

Infosys estimates that it eliminated more than 2.5 million items of singleuse plastic in the past year, though it is still implementing it as a voluntary measure. The company expects its campuses to be free of plastic by 2020.

The Mahindra Group has stopped the use of plastic bottles and replaced those with glass bottles on every table.

"A start has been made but there's a lot more to do. Our colleagues are helping dispose of single-use plastic responsibly by being a part of the group's plastic-disposal drive and plastic packaging is steadily being reduced,” said Anirban Ghosh, the chief sustainability officer at Mahindra & Mahindra.

Plastic-waste management rules of 2016 stipulate that companies which use plastics or styrofoam as packaging must reduce the use of such materials and find ways to replace those with eco-friendly alternatives within four years. They also must have arrangements to take back the plastics they have sent into the environment in the form of products or packaging materials.

"Some corporates had taken some steps, but the size of the intervention is insignificant compared to the mammoth task in front of them collectively," said R Ramesh, an associate professor at the Centre for Rural Infrastructure, National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, a think tank of the Ministry of Rural Development.

Godrej has stopped the use of pet plastic bottles. At Flipkart’s 9,000-staff, three-tower office in Bengaluru, the day an employee joins, he or she is given a steel water bottle so as to reduce the use of plastic.

A year ago, when the office came up, Flipkart did away with individual dustbins which had single-use plastic liners and created three common dustbins across floors where waste was being segregated.

"The behaviour we display in offices is what we imitate at home. We don't have any plastic or paper cups to use here. We even use our own cutlery and plates at our subsidised Chai Point outlet," said a Flipkart spokesperson.

Goldman Sachs moved away from the use of single-use plastic bottles in May 2019 and provides reusable glass bottles and cups to staff. Previously, the annual consumption of packaged mineral water was 28,000 bottles of 500 ml capacity each. This move has eliminated a substantial amount of plastic from going into the waste-recycle process.

This environmental initiative in India followed Goldman’s global ‘Bring Your Own Mug’ (BYOM) campaign, launched in August 2018. It helped reduce annual usage of nearly 6.5 million paper cups. Samsung too has a BYOM policy. The initiatives by the companies are also driving demand for alternative products.

Delhi-based Ecoware, which supplies biodegradable plates, bowls and cutlery, says orders for office-use products have been on the rise. The brand supplies to companies like JPMorgan Chase, Sapient and Bain, and is in conversation with a few others to get them on board.

Goldman’s office cafeteria and floor pantries in India offer fully compostable disposable crockery and reusable cutlery for employees to use on a daily basis. Plastic straws have been replaced with paper straws and wooden stirrers, and single-use garbage bags have also been discontinued.

At the RPG Group, plastic cups and plates have been replaced by glasses, metal bottles and recyclable plates. Pet water bottles which were kept for guests earlier have been removed and now water is served in glasses. It is also starting a campaign around this in October.

Pet water bottles were used in meetings and conferences, and plastic cutlery in the canteen at Godrej One, the group headquarters in Mumbai. From April 2018, it started using wooden cutlery made of birch wood. It also replaced plastic disposable containers with silver foil containers which are recyclable and enable 95% energy savings. The group is now awaiting further clarity from the authorities on the list of items considered as single-use plastic.

While a lot of companies are working in this direction, experts say more needs to be done. "

If corporates started appointing PROs for plastic waste collection on their behalf, the immediate benefit is that it might reduce the burden of local bodies to a certain extent," said Ramesh of the National Institute of Rural Development. “However, a larger impact can become visible only when state pollution control boards implement it seriously and there is a large-scale behaviour change among the common people.”